No conductor is equally good at everything. (A few come close, but. . .)

Michael Tilson Thomas' strengths are many and he has been making dramatic
progress with additional repertoire since coming to San Francisco seven
years ago, just as he turned 50.  As soon as his complete Mahler cycle
becomes available, the rest of the world will know what here (and in
London) is now being taken for granted:  he is entering the small club
of top Mahler interpreters.  The same is true in case of Stravinsky.

At tonight's concert in Davies Hall, half the concert MTT conducted
consisted of music he is a master of, second to none, and still
getting better.  All American music - classical, early 20th century,
contemporary, Broadway, ALL - is right up his sleeve, but perhaps nothing
as spectacularly as Ives.  Once again, the Ives Fourth approached
perfection, this tough, complex, challenging work performed as if it
were a well-known, beloved classic.

Even more memorable was an MTT specialty, six Ives hymns (with Vance
George' s superb SFS Chorus), a rarely-performed cluster of jewels, the
finest of choral literature.

As with Ives, so goes with Cowell, Harrison, Bernstein, Gershwin,
Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and so on.

And yet, what I was anticipating the most tonight was the "Berlioz portion"
of the program.  I am not familiar with MTT's interpretation of the
composer with whom I have had a lifelong, abiding love affair, and I was
hoping that Berlioz too could be added to the many feathers in his cap.

In the event, MTT's Berlioz had everything but that certain something,
which separates good from great.  It was a fine performance, but not in
the Ives class, not with the touch of genius.

The "Roman Carnival" Overture was excellent - clean, crisp, those tough
transitions from the carnival noise to the quiet theme and back again
handled exceptionally well.  On the English horn, Julie Ann Giacobassi gave
additional class to the performance.  And yet, this was only the warm-up
for the main event:  three lengthy excerpts from "Romeo et Juliette."

The best came at the beginning:  the Introduction
("Combat-Tumult-Intervention of the Prince") combined superb performances
from the trombones, great balance with the strings' manic energy,
impressing forward motion (if just a bit too slow), excellent sound.
The heart of this concert piece, of course, is the Love Scene, and that's
where the trusting, expectant listener became aware of problems.

The first hitch cannot be attributed to MTT directly:  the second-violin
section, which has such a prominent role here, is simply not on the
level of the other string sections (the violas and celli got their own,
well-deserved, bow at the end), and you can hear that clearly when they
have such exposed parts.

But even if the music director could beef up the section, he may still
have a problem besides the quality of the orchestra.  Instead of Berlioz's
marvelous mix of abandoned passion and melting lyricism, the MTT
performance was one of measured "beautiful sound." You can play the Love
Scene different ways - Rattle's breathless, dizzying envelope of sound;
Davies' power; Ozawa 's weightlessness - but not without convincing passion
if it is to measure up to the work's full, awesome potential.  That was
lacking.

"Romeo Alone" and the scene at the Capulets palace were yet another notch
below expectations.  The meandering music of Romeo became rambling, without
focus or center; the ecstatic outburst sounded suspiciously close to a
country dance, in heavy boots.  The heavy ostinato - Berlioz borrowing
from Glass? - didn't resolve with the punch that's the reason for it in
the first place.

And then, the strangest of tonight's failures, the orchestra sounded
downright sloppy when the themes converged - it's a difficult passage, but
far less complex than the similar Ives structure, which poses no problem
for this conductor at all (but does, very much, for others).

No conductor is equally good at everything.  MTT's Berlioz, as heard
tonight, is not in the same class with his interpretations of many other
composers.

Janos Gereben/SF
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